Rain On My Parade
by Era Yachi
Summary: It could be Fremarant or simply a decent friendship. Yours to decide.


**Author's Note:** *sweat drop* Uh….what's the point of these notes? *raises her had* Oh, oh, I know! Pick me! Pick me! AHEM, because THERE IS NOT POINT! Am I right? Well, of course, I'll give you the heads-up about this story-o-mine. What else? Really, I don't see the point in Fremarant. Seriously folks, just because Amarant has one or two decent conversations with Freya throughout the ENTIRE game, doesn't necessarily mean they're in _love_ you know. But no one reads my Lani/Amarant fics, so what the heck? This particular story is to be my main focus at the moment. I've got Sergundra to get done too, _on top_ of my online RPG. Anywho, this is either a Freya/Amarant friendship or strictly Fremarant. Got any ideas? Great. Neither do I.****

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**--Rain On My Parade--**

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_I am nearly alone._

_Nearly._

I don't want to start explaining my past. Hell, I don't even want a future, so what does the past mean to me? If now was past's future, I want nothing to do with it. See, the problem with him, is the fact that he looks forward all of the time. What good does looking at what might happen when there are people around you, dying? When you can smell the very blood on the earth? When you can see the ground that your own hands are staining? Anything can happen now. But he looks at what could happen after, and what happened before, when there was nothing to feel sorry about. Tears are something that accompanies sorrow. Sorrow accompanies the wrong decisions. Wrong decisions are the root of everyone's hatred, fear, sadness, anger, fury, mental instability…..The rest follows, such as death, pain, ignorance. Betrayal? Or is every single wrong turn just another lesson? Does looking forward mean that you are teaching yourself how to hate? To cry? If you spill the blood, and find yourself on your knees, who else to blame but yourself?

_My mother asked me these questions. I know now, presently, that she never once expected me to give a right or wrong answer. I couldn't even understand what she meant, so I said, "I don't know." She knew I would, of course.. I knew little of what my father was putting her through. I knew too little of the pain she was suffering. He hated me for being what I appeared to be, and she loved me for who I was. My own father hated me. That's right, he looked ahead. Ahead at what he knew, somewhere in his drunken, half-scarred mind, was dangerous to not only himself but to his wife, and his only child. Me. He looked forward, at money, at a life that he thought would bring him great fortunes. At home, I was only four, and growing all too rapidly. I demanded, without even knowing it, a great deal of attention, food, you know….the stuff you need to grow. The man I called 'father' became 'sir'. I'd only thought then, long ago, that he'd been the same way with her…..My mother, though it hurts to remember the times, took my shoulders and looked me straight in the face. Every night, she would make me promise to never become like him. I swore to her every time, and even then I had my throat exposed to a quick death. A painful one. Like now, I suppose. It's quite painful. Sitting here, remembering this stuff. Looking over useless memories I'd long ago forced myself to forget._

"What are you writing?"

He wasn't one to be surprised, in any case. The voice came from above him, among the thick, dew-soaked grasses. Craning his neck, the wrongfully infamous bandit peered into an uncomfortably familiar face.

Freya Cresent stared back, gradually taking his silence for offense, "If you want me to leave, then I will. I'm only a little curious. I never knew you could write."

"I never knew you were this nosy," he replied gruffly. "So we're even."

"How marvelous," said the Burmecian. Several drops of water rained down upon the bounty hunter's face, as she leapt from the ledge. Amarant stood up, concealing the note inside of a pocket, before she could land.

"I was getting the idea you were running away on me," Freya's soft voice ignited an irritated twitch in his left arm. "It's a little spooky…. I look up, and you are there, the next, you've vanished like a raindrop."

"You never did respect other's privacy," Amarant scorned, feeling a little protective over his hand-written note. There was no way he could let her…

"I'm not forcing you to…It's just unlike you to run off to write something behind a disfigured boulder," she replied, shrugging the comment from her shoulder like water droplets from her coat brim. "Is something matter?"

"Something's always the matter," he growled, turning away from her. "If you've had enough of tapping into my past, would you leave me alone?"

Freya was unable to help herself. "Your past?" she inquired, one eyebrow arching above the other.

It was his slip-up, which rightfully gave her reason to ask him about it. However, Amarant was less than likely to not only understand it, but care in that matter. His back remained to her eyes, but he did pause for only a moment to respond. "I hate discussions," he said tonelessly, an disappeared through the sheets of down-pouring rain.

"That's because you never have them…" the dragoon whispered to herself, shaking her head. More drops of moisture felt from the brim of her hat. "Think about it twice," she hollered after him, hoping he could hear her voice above the roaring of the storm. "Whatever it is, Amarant, I'll talk about it with you."

"Not interested…" the bandit grumbled to himself, ignoring the passing citizens, even when they swore at him upon being knocked into the mud. The repaired gates of Burmecia swung open before him at the hands of some rather reluctant-looking soldiers. He crossed through them without a side-glance.

He was getting used to being wet by now. The only moments he had to dry off were the ones inside the castle. Even then, his minutes spent outside heavily outweighed his time spent indoors. Water or none, he preferred open space over some rat's nest, especially when that rat's nest was full of rats blubbering over their city's loss. So what if it was a pile of rubble? Rats lived in rubble. They were home.

            The streets shared small rivers, intertwining and locking together in a complicated series of unnatural irrigation. The only vegetation to grow at the benefit of this disaster was likely to be gravel weeds, sprouting between stone cracks and buildings. Somehow, although it could never have been predicted, the amount of rainfall had increased to twice its normal amount during the past two months. It had been a long, sorry stretch of time while waterlogged, overgrown rats desperately tried to piece their city back together.

            Amarant grunted with distaste. Nothing smelt worse than wet rat.

            It wasn't as if he had something against them. Even if it had been against his will, the rat-city had taken him in when Treno was thrown into oblivion. His mind had been pretty much set on living among the shambles of the Lifeless City, when Freya, in all of her friendly-goodness, had appeared to offer him a job. 

            A job that involved rebuilding Burmbecia.

            He wasn't a technician, or a carpenter. Rocks and mud weren't his idea of a profession, so when Freya brought the subject up, he had immediately disappeared. It was barely an hour before Freya - not miraculously - found him again. It took a long conversation before she got to the point of the job being "clean." That day was the first day he had ever heard about the "war" between Burmecia and the Lepheain people. Clueless as to who or what Lepheain was, Amarant accepted the job as a spy.

            "Undercover investigator," the bandit scoffed under his breath. "Damn me if she hasn't the smallest clue…"

            His own thoughts haunted him, reminding him constantly of the little parchment folded in his pocket, ignored, left out, irregardless from all existence. That was the beginning of his personal autobiography. He meant "personal" as in the way it sounded. Looked upon by none other than himself, or come hell and high water. No one was to get their hands….or claws on his little piece of the past.


End file.
